It started with the woman who almost never speaks in public. Suddenly, last Thursday Melania Trump walked out to a podium in the White House in her perfectly tailored suit and talked about the last thing her husband wants to hear about, Jeffery Epstein. She said, “The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today. The individuals lying about me are devoid of ethical standards, humility and respect.” It sounded like she was talking about her husband. She went on to say she had never been friends with Epstein. She said she and Trump were invited to the same parties as Epstein because he was in overlapping social circles. She was not an Epstein victim, never been on his plane or his private island and didn’t know he was a sexual predator. She said she has taken legal action against publications and individuals who she said spread unfounded and baseless lies. She called for congressional hearings for the Epstein’s victims. The address lasted only a few minutes then she turned around walked back inside.

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I was listening to sports talk radio when I heard an interview with New York Post Sports Columnist Mike Vaccaro. He’s written a new book about George Steinbrenner. Being a life long Yankees fan, it caught my interest. I remembered there was a sports writer at the Post who was a St. Bonaventure University graduate. I looked Mike up and sure enough he was in the class of 1989. I was in the class of 1972. I knew he was doing a book tour and I thought I might get him for an interview. I played the Bonaventure card and Mike answered my email right away and we set up a Face Time interview. Once a Bonnie always a Bonnie.

When George Steinbrenner and a group of investors bought the New York Yankees in 1973 for just $8.8 million dollars, it changed baseball and the city of  New York. Mike’s new book tells the story of the larger than life character called “The Bosses of the Bronx”. Vaccaro says the sale came at a critical moment and saved the Yankees.

“He saved the Yankees as a New York entity. When he and his partners bought the team in 1973, the Mets were a clear number one baseball team in town. The Yankees TV and radio deals were nothing. They played in a tough neighborhood. New Jersey was already making a play to try and drag the Yankees along. They wanted to bring the Yankees along with the Giants.”

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What’s happened to our country? We are in the middle of an undeclared war crippling the world’s oil supply. We watch the Middle East on fire every day. Thousands killed including US service personnel with no end in sight. Gas prices climbing by the hour. Hours long lines at airports. Our government is unable to function. The rest of the world which used to be able to count on us to lead the way and use our power to keep them safe are stunned and afraid of what we have become. “The shining city of the hill” was a metaphor used by Ronald Reagan to describe the United States as a beacon of hope, freedom, opportunity and a champion of American exceptionalism. It comes from the bible, “A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.” How’s that looking today?

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You’re taken in by the beautifully restored 1930 George Washington Ballroom at the War Memorial in Trenton, NJ. The only light are hundreds of candles illuminating the stage, along the floor lining the walls and single candles at the beginning of every aisle. Our tickets were a birthday gift from friends. It was a one hour concert of Beatles’s music played by a string quartet. The crowd was Baby Boomers who grew up in the Sixties when the Beatles created maybe the greatest collection of popular music in the 20th century. The four musicians, two women and two men, playing two violins, a viola, and a bass sat down and brought the Beatles music to life as you never heard it before.

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There is no more consequential decision a president makes than committing the nation to war. There is a process of getting congressional approval to declare war and a full explanation to the American people of why war is justified and what the goals and end game are. The current Trump war got none of that. We got a video made and released in the middle of the night from his gold encrusted estate in Florida. He didn’t have the decency to even wear a tie. But he did have that ridiculous white hat on with USA across the front of it. Where was Tony Soprano to tell him to take the hat off when he was declaring war as he told the guy to take his hat off in his friend’s restaurant? Trump was asking our military to do something he avoided and insulted them over the years for committing to the defense of the country.

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The last time I wrote about a birthday I was sixty-five and I called it “The Last Birthday”. I wrote about the significant birthdays in our lives turning eighteen, then twenty-one, and finally sixty-five and what those milestones represented in our lives. I was looking forward to more birthdays. But now I’m rethinking this “Last Birthday” idea. It’s ten years later and I’m staring at seventy-five. These last ten years have brought retirement. We watched our four granddaughters grow up, now reaching teenage years. Maureen and I have taken some great trips and spent summers at the Jersey shore. We are healthy and active and think we look younger than those other seventy-five year olds. But life changes.

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Just when we thought he couldn’t shock us and outrage us any more with his behavior. Trump continues to do everything to divide us with his narcissistic personality, the constant need for admiration. But it’s always the wrong kind of attention.We have seen the signs and actions that told us he was a racist and bigot. He is trying to erase Black history from museums and national parks. He even ordered the display of household slaves exhibited at George Washington’s house in Philadelphia taken down. National Parks used to offer free admission on Martin Luther King Day. Trump changed the free day to Flag Day, which also happens to be his birthday. How low and petty can you get.?

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“From the time he was three, we knew he wanted to be in the military.” Barton Humlhanz’s mother, Michele said. “He tried to join the military in high school. Bart wanted to be a military police officer. When he graduated, there was no openings in the army for a military police officer. The army said join the reserves and we’ll get you in later. That didn’t pan out and Bart got out of his contract. After graduating from Saucon Valley High School in January, 2001, Bart got a job at a convenience store pumping gas.

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This is the time of year we look back on the good and the bad. We can all argue about what we think should be included on which list. I have my own list of people who showed us examples of those not afraid to make sacrifices to stare down the world’s bully. They are men and women who finally couldn’t take it anymore no matter what the cost.

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Mia Tretta was in her dorm room with a friend at Brown University last Saturday when she got an alert warning about an emergency at the engineering building. She thought it couldn’t be a shooting. We all know now it was a shooting that killed two students and wounded nine. The Associated Press spoke with Mia on the phone on Sunday. What she said should shock us all. “No one should ever have to go through one shooting, let alone two. And as someone who was shot at my high school when I was fifteen years old, I never thought that this was something I’d have to go through again.” Tretta was shot in the abdomen during a mass shooting in 2019 at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California. Two students were killed; Mia and two other students were wounded.

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